Activities in Tanzania

Project on Strengthening Manufacturing Enterprises through Quality and Productivity Improvement (KAIZEN) Phase 2

Project Duration

Phase 1: April 2013 to December 2016
Phase 2: March 2017 to March 2022

Overall Goal

Tanzanian KAIZEN Movement is progressed toward a nationwide expansion.

The number of private enterprises which practice KAIZEN is increased and the competitiveness of the enterprises is improved.

Project Purpose

Capacity of MIIT/TKU and KAIZEN service providers (SIDO, CBE and Private Consultants) to promote KAIZEN to private enterprises in a sustainable manner is strengthened

(*) MIT = Ministry of Investment, Industry and Trade, TKU = Tanzania Kaizen Unit, SIDO = Small Industries Development Organization, CBE = College of Business Education

Project Output

1. The implementation structure and institution to promote KAIZEN are strengthened.
2. Capacity of SIDO to provide KAIZEN consulting service is strengthened.
3. Pilot KAIZEN activities in collaboration with leading enterprises are implemented, through which skills of KAIZEN trainers are upgraded.
4. Activities toward sustainable KAIZEN promotion are enhanced.

Summary of Project

"KAIZEN" is originally a Japanese word meaning "Continuous Improvement", and is a management philosophy and know-how for continuous quality and productivity improvement of concerned organizations. It is also a human-oriented approach fostering teamwork, mindset change, self-reliance, creativity and ingenuity to come up with ideas for solutions to the problems we face in Tanzania.

The Project on Strengthening Manufacturing Enterprises through Quality and Productivity Improvement (KAIZEN) - a project which has jointly been implemented by the Ministry of Investment, Industry and Trade (MIIT) in collaboration with JICA since 2013.

The phase II of the Project started in 2017 in order to promote KAIZEN to private enterprises with sustainability by MIIT/Tanzania KAIZEN Unit (TKU) and KAIZEN service providers (e.g. Small Industries Development Organization (SIDO), College of Business Education (CBE), and private providers). The Project has implemented KAIZEN for 8 regions (Dar es Salaam, Dodoma, Kilimanjaro, Singida, Mbeya, Morogoro, Mwanza, and Arusha) through Phase II. In addition, more than 130 KAIZEN Trainers have been certified, and more than 100 companies have been implementing KAIZEN activities.

Training for KAIZEN Trainers (at Dar es Salaam Serena Hotel in December 2020)

Training for KAIZEN Trainers in Gemba (Working place) (TANAFRICA Company Limited)

KAIZEN Implementation Team (KIOO. limited)

<Tanzanian KAIZEN Model: KAIZEN x Cluster Approach>

KAIZEN activities have been implemented more than 10 African countries since the late 2000s. However, Tanzania is the first country in Africa to implement KAIZEN for Industrial Clusters. It is called the "Tanzanian KAIZEN Model", and the Model was introduced to other African countries on the Africa KAIZEN Annual Conference (AKAC) 2021. The Project selected 3 existing Industrial Clusters (i.e. Grape Cluster in Dodoma, Metal Engineering Cluster Initiative in Morogoro, and Mbeya Rice Group Cluster) and another new cluster in Kagera (which has more than 100 micro business enterprises) as pilot exercises, and they had implemented KAIZEN activities for companies of those Clusters since early 2020. According to the presentation, around 70% of the participating companies have achieved positive impacts in terms of production lead-time, finding-time reduction, space creation, etc., through KAIZEN.

<FKM 2020-2030: To Sustain and Disseminate KAIZEN Activities>

In 2020, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MIT, then-name of the current MIIT) designed a policy document called "Framework for Quality and Productivity Improvement (KAIZEN) in the Manufacturing sector 2020-2030 (FKM 2020-2030)". FKM is a policy to expand KAIZEN movement to cover the nation through a well-designed KAIZEN training program, a sustainable mechanism of KAIZEN promotion, and effective strategy for KAIZEN dissemination for realizing further industrialization in Tanzania. It is expected that MIIT will continuously expand KAIZEN movement based on the FKM even after the Project's completion.

FKM 2020-2030 https://www.mit.go.tz/uploads/files/FKM_0428-FINAL-02.pdf (PDF/333KB)

<KAIZEN Online Training Materials>

JICA updated the free-charged video materials to learn KAIZEN in August 2021 and broadcasted them via YouTube. It was composed of 3 sessions as follows. If you are interested, kindly join us!

• 1. Management Strategy (Youtube, external link)
• 2. Accounting (Youtube, external link)
• 3. Quality of Management (Youtube, external link)
• 4. Trailer Final (Youtube, external link)

*JICA Tanzania Office is planning to launch the Kiswahili translated version.